from cleveland.com
LORAIN, Ohio — A Lorain police dispatcher handed in her resignation after officials said she eavesdropped on a call between her supervisor and another dispatcher and improperly accessed her co-workers’ schedules.
LeeAnne Failing — who is married to Lorain Police officer Lt. Michael Failing — used her husband’s password to access a feature in the police department’s dispatching software to listen to a call, an internal investigation shows.
Michael Failing faces a 30-day unpaid suspension for letting his wife use his username and password, according to a report. Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera recommended that Michael Failing be demoted to sergeant if he is disciplined again within the next year.
LeeAnne Failing also user her husband’s access to the computer system to look up information about her co-workers at least 29 times, the report concluded. Rivera wrote in his report that it was possible that she accessed the department’s system more than 29 times, “but the evidence was erased because of a limited recording capacity.”
LeeAnne Failing told her superiors during a discipline hearing that her husband gave her his username and password because he needed to see something in the police department’s system and couldn’t access it from their home because their internet was down. Officers are allowed to access the department’s computer system from their personal computers and cellphones, the report said. She said her husband didn’t know that she continued to access the system after that day. She didn’t deny the allegations in her disciplinary hearing, telling her superiors “I did this to myself.”
LeeAnne Failing said the supervisor she eavesdropped on knew that people could listen to her calls on the department’s system. She said she accessed her co-workers schedules to see if she could help supervisors with scheduling problems. She told her superiors she acted alone. LeeAnne Failing submitted a handwritten resignation letter to Lorain Safety Service Director Robert Fowler on Tuesday.
By giving his wife his user name and password, Rivera wrote that Michael Failing committed “a serious breach of security, policy and judgment.” Rivera wrote that Michael Failing should have known his wife was using his username and password to access the department’s system.